A storage area network (SAN) may be implemented as a high-speed, special purpose network that interconnects different kinds of data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a large network of users. Typically, a SAN includes high performance switches as part of the overall network of computing resources for an enterprise. The storage area network is usually clustered in close geographical proximity to other computing resources, such as mainframe computers, but may also extend to remote locations for backup and archival storage using wide area network carrier technologies. Fibre Channel networking is typically used in SANs although other communication technologies may also be employed, including Ethernet and IP-based storage networking standards (e.g., iSCSI, FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP), etc.).
As used herein, the term “Fibre Channel” refers to the Fibre Channel (FC) family of standards (developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)) and other related and draft standards. In general, Fibre Channel defines a transmission medium based on a high speed communications interface for the transfer of large amounts of data via connections between varieties of hardware devices.
In a typical SAN, one or more Fibre Channel switches are used to communicatively connect one or more server devices with one or more data storage devices. Such switches generally support a high performance switching fabric and provide a number of communication ports for connecting via individual communication links with other switches, host servers, storage devices, or other SAN devices. However, if a communication link between one of the devices and the switching fabric becomes disabled (e.g., someone unplugs a link between a host and an edge switch of the switching fabric), the process of re-establishing communications for that device (e.g., for the host) can disrupt and introduce substantial delay in the data communications for that device. In addition, re-establishing communications can alter the identity by which the device is known by other fabric-connected devices. Furthermore, loss of a communications link can create bottlenecks in other communications links connecting the device to the fabric.